Sepp Kuss

Sepp Kuss is an American professional bike racer on the Jumbo-Visma squad. Seen as a world-class climber, he has won multiple Grand Tour stage wins and enjoyed his career performance to win the Vuelta a España in 2023.

Kuss came through the ranks at Rally Cycling before jumping into the men’s WorldTour with Team LottoNL-Jumbo at the start of 2018. During his first year on the Dutch team, Kuss won the overall at the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah and made his Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta a España.

The following season saw Kuss line up at the Giro d’Italia, where he helped teammate Primož Roglič to third overall. Later that year Kuss returned to the Vuelta a España where he won his first Grand Tour stage win. Solidified as a vital climber in the team’s stage racing department, Kuss raced the Tour de France in 2020, earning his place a few weeks before with a stage victory in the Criterium du Dauphine in France. He finished 15th overall in Paris, once again riding for Roglič with the Slovenian finishing second in Paris after a nail-biting final time trial.

Kuss would return to the Vuelta for a third straight time in 2020, this time helping Roglič to the overall win and finishing inside the top twenty.

2021 saw Kuss win his first Tour de France stage win, while another finish at the Vuelta saw him claim eighth overall. Kuss was part of another winning Tour de France team in 2022, with teammate Jonas Vingegaard wearing the maillot jaune into Paris.

His remarkable record in Grand Tours extended to 2023, in which he helped Roglič win the Giro d'Italia before assisting Vingegaard at the Tour de France. In July, Kuss' performances were so strong that he hovered inside the top 10 for much of the race before ultimately coming home in 12th.

Kuss and Jumbo-Vismamade history to become the first team to ever win all three Grand Tours in the same season, with Kuss himself picking up the most unexpected of titles at the Vuelta. The feat also made Kuss the first teammate to be part of three Grand Tour-winning squads within the same year.

• Read more: The making of Sepp Kuss: Durango, mountain bikes, and the lasting love of letting it rip

At this point, the American is widely seen as the greatest climbing domestique in the world and the Vuelta marked his fifth Grand Tour participation in a row, but with a Grand Tour win now under his belt, more leadership opportunities will await the American in 2024.